a single loose thread (it all comes undone)
by hollyhobbit101
Summary: The Doctor returns to where Gallifrey used to be. She sits, legs swinging out into that empty sky, and she remembers.


**Title from Sorrow by Sleeping At Last**

* * *

She waits until everyone's gone to bed before setting the TARDIS in motion again, heading for the centre of the universe. She often does this - parks them somewhere peaceful and far flung where they can have a few hours of respite between adventures - though right now she wants more than anything to keep going. Still, her friends need their rest. So does she, if she's being honest, but that's the thing.

Rule One: the Doctor lies.

Normally, she'd use this time to do repairs on the TARDIS, fixing things that probably don't really need fixing in order to keep her busy. She's never liked staying still, and this body seems to hate it more than most. It feels like the only thing she knows how to do now is run, though perhaps it's the only thing she's ever truly known. It's why she's been trying to move onwards - _away _\- towards a place where she can honour the promises she forced herself to make.

_Never be cruel__, _the old man told her._ Never fail to be kind._

She tries. She smiles, and she laughs, and she tells her friends that she's okay. But he also told her to run fast, and so she does that too. Always, always running.

It is not kind, she thinks, to keep her friends in the dark like this. It is not kind to push their questions away with a sharp look or a dismissive remark. She'd once thought it was - _known _it was - but that was before.

It is not kind, not even to herself, to run like this, without stopping or even slowing for breath. But stopping means thinking, and thinking means remembering, and remembering means feeling. She doesn't want to remember. She doesn't want to feel.

She doesn't know, then, why she's brought herself here. She hasn't been here in a long time, never thought she'd come back again, but she needs to see it. Needs, god help her, to remember. It will help - perhaps - she hopes - to stop all of these noises in her head that tell her to run and hide and forget and lie. It will, or it won't.

The engines quiet to a soft hum and she goes to the doors, pausing behind them. She knows what is - or isn't, more accurately - out there; it hasn't been here in a long, long time, way before he did what he did. Even so. She can still remember when it used to be here - she only saw it once, but it was beautiful, and vast, and now it is nothing. Empty space, where once a civilisation bloomed.

She sits, legs dangling into that vast space, and she remembers a promise they had once made together, the Master and she, though that was long before either of them had chosen to be Doctor and Master. Every star in the sky, they'd said, they were going to visit all of them. Together, because anything else was unthinkable.

Another to add to her list of broken promises, then.

* * *

She sits there for a long time because time, such as it is, does not exist in this deep stretch of space. Soft footsteps echo behind her, but she is so lost in thought that she doesn't notice until Yaz is at her elbow.

"Can I sit?" she asks, and the Doctor wants to send her away.

She nods.

_(Be kind)_

Yaz eases down next to her, and the silence that follows is almost companionable. But she can feel the question hanging in the air around them, and she knows there's no escaping them this time. Her walls are too weak for that after these past few weeks.

Sure enough, Yaz turns to her. "You know the other day. When you asked if we had any questions?"

She closes her eyes, bracing herself. "Yeah."

"Right," Yaz says, and because she's so much kinder than the Doctor will ever be, she sounds almost guilty for wanting to push. "Well... I didn't want to say anything in front of the boys but... Are you okay, Doctor?"

The question takes her aback, not at all what she was expecting, and yet she thinks that she shouldn't be surprised. This is Yaz, after all.

"Always," she says, but her voice shakes, almost as though it doesn't want to speak the lie. Yaz gives her a look, but she doesn't press. She knows the answer anyway.

"Where are we?" she asks after a moment, clearly attempting to change the subject. The Doctor is grateful for the effort, but she wishes Yaz hadn't tried.

Still. "The constellation of Kasterborous," she answers, and waits for the penny to drop.

When it does, Yaz turns to her with eyes blown wide. "That's where you said you're from, right?"

At the Doctor's nod of assent, Yaz grins, leaning out to peer at the stars. And this, this is something that she will never tire of. Humans are full of so much wonder, so eager to see all the beautiful corners of the universe, and Yaz doesn't know the tragedy of this place. More than anything, the Doctor wishes things could stay this way.

"Which one's yours then?" Yaz asks, oh so innocently. "None of these look like planets."

The Doctor sighs, then grabs Yaz's hand, guiding it to a spot in the sky. "See that cluster of stars just there? With the really bright one just below it? That's where it was."

She lets go of Yaz's hand, and Yaz lets it drop to her side, frowning at her. "But...there's nothing there."

The Doctor fixes her eyes on that spot to avoid the pity she's sure is coming. "Him and me, we're the last of the Time Lords. Our planet, our people, they're all gone. Ashes."

"Him... You mean O?"

She smiles sadly. "His name's the Master, same as mine's Doctor. We weren't always called that though, they're just the names we chose when we decided who we wanted to be. Before that, we were friends. You ever had the kind of friend you think will be there beside you for your entire life?"

Yaz nods, watching her intently. The Doctor just keeps staring out. "I thought we'd go to the end of the universe with each other. I suppose we have, in a way. Just not the way either of us intended."

Silence stretches out, and the Doctor thinks she's done it this time. She doesn't want to look at Yaz, doesn't want to see whatever pity or sorrow or horror is on her face. She's not supposed to be the one who needs comforting. This isn't who she's meant to be.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Yaz says, laying a hand on her arm. She almost pulls away from the touch, but she doesn't want to hurt Yaz any more than she already has. "Maybe... Maybe you could tell me what it was like? It might help."

She shakes her head, and it's on the tip of her tongue to say no. But then she remembers another girl, so much like Yaz, who had sat in the rubbish of another almost-dead world and demanded they talk. Martha had helped, that day. So she meets Yaz's eyes, which are full of so much kindness, and nods.

"We were once the most powerful race in the galaxy, living under a beautiful burnt orange sky. Two suns, and when the second one rose in the south, everything would come alive."

And as she speaks, as she remembers, she can pretend that the planet she had once known was still out there, somewhere. And, gradually, the hurt begins to lessen.


End file.
